a re-thinking/re-presenting/re-imagining space for all things adolescent

10.03.2007

blog updates and other thoughts

due to all the other writing that's consumed my time, my blog writing has suffered. however, i've been playing around with some of the new add-on features that blogger provides and am especially jazzed about the video searches. i also added a section for announcements related to upcoming conferences and calls for papers that i find out about that look interesting. if you know of others, please pass along.

a note about the previous post - it's a call for proposals for the 2008 nctear conference that will be held in bloomington, indiana. it's one of my favorite conferences - small, generative of good talk and new ideas, and manageable in size and scope. this year's theme is particularly exciting because the combination of strands within the context of the theme - literacy research in communities - offers a chance to bring together the past three years' themes which were, respectively:2005 - literacies across time, space and place: new directions in literacy research for political action2006 - literacy as a civil right: reclaiming social justice in literacy research and teaching2007 - what counts as literacy: living literacies of the body and image

im hoping for papers and presentations that consider literacies representation across new media as/for social justice; and the pedagogical implications of literacies research with adolescents across home/school/community boundaries; and an exploration of how new forms of communication across virtual and physical geographies shapes and informs individuals' sense of community/ies...

that is, for so long, the conversations about new literacies and social justice and critical pedagogy have remained tri-chotomized (if you will allow me the imagery), despite the overlap of these areas of focus in many scholars' work. why can't innovation also address equity and social inclusion? how might a critical perspective on literacy engage social networking spaces and digital communicative modalities? the reality is that these intersections are also readily present in the work and intentions of many young people. they understand that the theory/practice split is a farce. so should we all...

1 comment:

Dr. Rice:I think I have... I am the kind of work you are looking for. I have written something that's of value to what you are trying to speak about the multiply modalities of the African American experience. I have chronicled the epistemology of nigressence from a 9 year old immigrant confused and bewildered by the American hypocrisy to a 17 year old finding peace, acceptance of self and a path to glory in this world. My book "17 to Life: A Memoir on Accepting Love, Defining Blackness and Living Free [In America] deals with the psychology and the inner turmoil of blackness, maleness, urbaness, intelligence, passion, the search for truth like nothing you have ever read. I am honest and frank and speak in a language young folks understand because I am one of them.

The academy will find value in it because I am that rare lab rat who became self aware and studied himself. I use your tools in the way I understood them as a teenager. When you read more, you will understand.

SAMPLE"...When Gavin Cato was run over on President Street in Crown Heights --five minutes from where I lived --and the so-called riots ensued, I was appalled. When a Jewish man got killed, I was distraught. The boy who shot the Jewish man was an old acquaintance who used to play baseball at Lincoln Terrace Park when I was at Mary McCleod Bethune. He used to smile a lot. He loved baseball. Now, he was in the papers and on the news. He was never smiling. Brothas didn’t smile in Brooklyn.

“Why do they have to do this on TV?” I asked my self. “We’re just showing the world what they think we are --animals.”

“Are they supposed to do nothing? A black kid got run over. The driver of the car is hiding in Israel. Could a black man get away with that?” my self asked. “You really got to start hangin’ out with more brothas, Oronde. At least study some Public Enemy or Boogie Down Productons. You don’t even know the people on this block, do you? You can at least pick your head up and smile at the beautiful sistas around here,” my self continued.

“They don’t like him,” the little boy countered. “They’ve never liked me. When I first got here. They thought I sounded white.”“They thought… They thought.” My self had been trying to evict the little idiot. The little boy was coming between my self and me. Even I was afraid for the boy. Where would he go?

“Did anybody ever tell you, 'I don’t like you because your voice sounds white’,” my self insisted.“No.”“Are you starting to see something here?” I didn’t want to think it, but it was there. “It’s all in my head.”“Shonuf!”“You’re saying every negative thought I’ve had about black people is only a…”“Keep going. Keep going.”“…Only a… a projection of the way I feel about me.”“Don’t stop. Don’t stop there,” he urged, like a teacher finding his purpose.“And if I start thinking positive about me, then I’ll start thinking positive about black people.”“Not just black people. Everybody.”“Why don’t they teach this in school?” I asked.“They do.”“Then how come I never got it?”“You never liked me enough to learn,” my self said. “I mean, learn it deep down in my soul so you never forget it.”“This can’t be right. Life can’t be that simple?” I wondered.“It’s a lot simpler than you think. Truths always are. The world just makes every day more complex ‘cause man has to do something between sun-up and sundown.”“What kind of truths?” I asked.“Love.” He said simply. “A love of self is the most important thing anybody --black, white, brown, yellow, tan, purple-- will ever learn. Honestly, how do you feel these days?” I thought about it. “I feel light.”“Not only do you feel light, you also see light, don’t you?” I was confused. “The people in the hallway,” my self went on, “are not looking at the dreads or the glasses. They’re looking at light. It’s like you’re born again. Who doesn’t want to be born again? You said it yourself. You’re the mother, father and son rolled all into one. You’re becoming complete. You’re growing up. You’re becoming human, my brotha. Human.”

I didn’t understand all that my self was saying, but I felt good after hearing it..."